Saturday, October 4, 2008

musical masochism

i am beginning to believe that feelings are what really dictates the course of the whole wide world. if we knew what to do with them or why we have them or how to deal with somebody else's, then reality would be a lot different.
let's see...there might not be any soul music. perhaps ia m such a soul music freak because The Impressions, The Fleetwoods, Al Green, Etta James, Jack Johnson, KT Tunstall (okay so maybe i already lost a bunch of you with the last two- anyway if you can't handle a genre slip technicality, FYI nothing here for you...) and i am not tlaking about R & B here- totally different in my estimation.

***this post was continued months later***



musical masochism is a term that happened on me in the early 90's when my BF at the time ran off to Vegas with a friend and got married in an Elvis chapel on a dare. it broke my heart though true to habit of mine there was no commitment in the relationship- only my secret resolve to ditch my Tinkerbell Pixie pants for Wendy's chicken broth nightgown and take Peter Pan down to earth with me...back to the tale at hand- while BF du jour was off in Sin City with rocker babe there i was with the other man- Jim Beam. My roommate didn't feel the need to respond until Patsy Cline or Glen Campbell were spun one too many times. he told me, this musical masochism has got to get to the next level. he scooped me up and delivered me to Murphy's on Mission where we matched tears for beers and threw back shots of Beam in between- the dark velvet black out ensued somewhere around Johnny Cash moaning out Kris Kristoffersson's Sunday Morning Coming Down.

Today i am licking BF wounds again. this time music is really wrecked for me. i am going to have to carve out some new playlists- everything i love closest to my heart of hearts keeps echoing through the halls of memory and meaning associated with you know who. there are a few untouched, but the song remains the same my friends...post-break up music is mostly like a ghost poking you or a breeze from no where come to scratch you in your fresh road rash. once the scab forms, lifts and then itches like hell, then you can look at it and you have to rebuild in order to get a vivid remember of the pain. This is my favorite part about it- you don't lose those memories- that's how each love gets to live for allways, better or worse- stamping time on your heart.

Friday, October 3, 2008

dark and stormy night

i am thinking about where i could go, live, visit, be that will include and allow me the opportunity, the freedom to ride my bicycle alone at night. I would so be out there right now if it wasn't so damned scary. I know lots of women who do it- i can't- not worth the contraction to my skin and soul fibres.

I think I will have to go to Tahoe or Amsterdam or New Orleans. Scratch that, reverse it- there will be no alone bike night riding and now i am super duper bummed because my night rider buddy is on ice. reason number 172,893 that it sucks to be a woman in the bay area. i don't live in an urban well lit or populated area where being a target might be less of an issue- i would have no problem riding through San Francisco- is that dumb? i don't know why, it's just different.

this really pisses me off. that there are activities that would make my life richer are not available to me without having a boy in-tow. Boys are great and I love having them around a lot- my favorites to share with BUT sometimes I am better with some adventures alone to bring to the table.

why was it okay to ride my bike in New Orleans? i didn't do it much, not after dark anyway. not in the Garden District or really downtown either. in Mid-City it wasn't such a concern- and hell in the neighborhood where i grew up- no dice babe, my brother had more bikes stolen- everytime while he was riding- than i think either of us can remember.

i think it is such a crock of shit that i have not felt safe in most of the places i have lived. no matter where it has been there has been the look over your shoulder some stupid ass man could be coming up on you with an alterior motive. it's this shit that makes me want to move to Denmark. (My Ice friends will have my yankee ass for that comment i promise) Probably the safest i ever felt was in Reykjavik- i won't ever forget being stumbling drunk all by myself in the cemetary behind my friend's flat-- some under 18 punk in black wool pulls a butter knife on me and mumbles some disgruntled words that resembled backward audio projection to my ears-- like he was gonna rob me. i grabbed it out his hand an scolded him. i saw in teh bar later that night too. you collide with everyone twice in a calendar day in Iceland, i guarantee it. the had a female prime minister in the early 90's.

nobody who isn't going full retard uses the n-word, fag has been out for awhile and even gay is only enjoying a resurgence in the peter pan comedy set absolutely because it is accepted as wrong. but nobody sees anything wrong with a woman being a bitch. damn it- seems like the countdown to a female president here really is about 150+ years off.


i'm not rough and tumble feminist who renders men obsolete- oh hells yes we are all built different- we bring different chemicals to the formula. i simply abhor the rub in the face that my upbringing bandies about when something really would be easier if i had a god damned man around to help me. why can't we all just get along? or at least me and whoever you are... i don't NEED man per se, but i sure would like one...

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Rethinking Naked

Once upon a time in a body far far away, there was no thought process associated with nudity- i didn't care when or how or who- if the situation called for naked, the clothes came off and i was in.

Is it an age thing? I was late twenties to early thirties when my someone called out naked people- as in she was not one of them. Select scenes flashed through my mind- annual trips to the only clothing optional National Park in the country; full frontal in an independent film; working as a dancer; membership to the women's bathhouse -- not to mention countless hot tubs, saunas, nude beaches and the exhilirating shreiks of high altitude skinny dipping in an alpine lake- nipples as sharp as the icicles floating by on the crystalline water...

The first clue that inhibitions were setting in was a recent trip to the beach with a an old friend and his new friends. Fast forward from the aforementioned frames to a body that has morphed to resemble a human tick, given birth, endured dry spells that stretched way beyond allowable let alone desirable limits-- not to mention boobs that suddenly remsembled dripping pizza dough at the right wrong angles. oh hell no i wasn't getting naked in front of the kids who had no ideas about gravity and how each birthday knocks your skin's elasticity down a notch. i am no botox queen but i know when to keep my shit on! and granted, it was the girls that set the balance, were i the only female there- how the boys' look has no bearing- they are for the most part- the younguns anyway, in no great shape themselves, too young to have any kind of perceptive handle on the fact that life is harder when you take shit care of yourself. back to the point- there were other female figures along, none of them getting naked or sharing their wobbly bits- i sure wasn't gonna debut as the stretched and striped older lady...jesus chrysler ia m nearly twice their age!



***this prologue written months later***

i went back to the same beach by myself. it is a clothing optional beach. i have since lost a lot of weight, the relationship with the friend formerly known as my date has all but disolved into something unremarkable for the good of all involved-- and the freedom of a borderline sweltering day at the ocean in late October with little more than a journal to write in-- was one of the most liberating days i have enjoyed this year. far too infrequent are the days that find me as free as a leaf in a breeze-- time and space where the thought to watch my back is so wildly inappropriate as to evaporate all together. and topless on a Bay Area beach! i ventured to the right of the cliff descending staircase and settled between two clusters of gay men. i wrote, they cheered me on in my black sand walkabout. a good time was had by all and i felt so good. so good.